We learned the Whole of Love
by jomiddlemarch
Summary: The first night after the world ends and begins again.


There was enough space, there were so few of them; they could have been alone. They could have found an alcove or a corner hung with shadows like Alderaanian silk, so fine, so rare, but they didn't. None of them left, bedding down like kits in a den, not one far from another. Rey could hear Poe's breathing hitch before it evened it and she saw how lovely his face was, how old he had become, in his sleep. She knew Finn would not want to leave Rose. She had seen the way he looked at her when he drew the coverlet over her and she thought how she wanted the other woman to wake up. How she wanted to meet her and ask her anything at all.

Rey had not asked Finn much, only gestured to the space beside her and said, "Here?" He had not bothered to nod. She lay with her head pillowed on her bent arm and felt him behind him, like a star's corona. His knees nudged hers and she settled back. He'd brought something to cover them, something spare and salvaged, something precious, and though she didn't need its warmth, she liked the weight of it against her bare arm. She knew Leia watched over them all, half-asleep herself, wherever she sat the throne. Rey did not think about where Ben was or how empty the cliffs were above the North Sea on Ahch-To. She counted Finn's exhalations and the number of selves she had seen in the mirrored depths. She slept and in her dreams, she came for him and he for her. The stones became the sea, became the sky, the stars, the darkness, and still she lifted them all to get to him. Still, he ran towards her, calling for her _Where's Rey where's Rey Rey rey rey_.

She woke and found herself facing him, his arms around her. His brow was furrowed; she did not think he rested easily and she reached up without thinking first—a hand on his shoulder, his neck, a thumb drawn against his cheek where it was wet with tears. She tasted them on his lips and would have been startled by herself if he hadn't opened his eyes then, to look at her and see. And seeing, to kiss her so softly it was not a kiss, it was the only kiss, precious as he was. They were not alone and there was no one near; she did not try to stop herself from pulling him closer, from casting her spirit headlong towards his where he waited for her. She felt his body against hers and sighed with the pleasure of it. He had been ill, injured, when she left him and now he was not; now, he was whole and strong. She did not see through his eyes, as she had with Ben, she saw through his heart and how she was beloved of it. How she would never be left behind. She kissed his mouth and she felt as the light-saber did when it flared in her grasp, how willing the ocean was to leave the shore. His hand was at her hip but she felt it everywhere. She had never known such luxury- such necessity.

"Finn," she said. A beginning, whispered, so she wouldn't disturb anyone. So no one would notice anything except for Leia, who was something not-Jedi, and woman enough to hold her tongue and close her eyes, to try and remember Bespin and a dirty, handsome scoundrel.

"I got your message," he said, the words right against her lips, so she could swallow them. And then, "Rey. Rey, Rey, Rey" he repeated as if there were no other words left. Were there? She heard a language she could not comprehend, perhaps in her mind, and she knew it was what he had spoken before he'd been taken, stolen from his home. She wondered if she would learn his first-name, the one his parents had chosen. He moved closer and she felt him through the Force, his wonderful, gentle beckoning, and she left it move over her, wind shaping the dunes, tide shaping the shore. She suddenly knew how Ben was alone and how his wound wept again, how even the metal floor against his cheek seemed to withdraw, atom by atom. Finn drew her closer and caressed her throat, the curve of her jaw. _Rey_ he murmured; she had not known her name could be everything.

"So, that's how it is," Poe might say when he woke and they had not. Wry or rueful or resigned, regarding their embrace, her face pressed against his heart-beat.

"Don't be any more a fool than you have to, Poe," Leia would say. She had known so many fools, but when had they ever listened? "Haven't you learned yet, what is, and what isn't? And what may be? You'd better," she'd say, but kindly, as she wished someone would have said to her.

Rey would still be asleep and Finn with her. Always with her, however far. However close, it was never close enough. Not yet, not before she had discovered what it meant to be the last Jedi. The first Jedi.


End file.
